Cairo Cinema Gives Egypt Home For Alternative Film

CAIRO (AP) — Squeezed in between auto parts shops and cafes off the crowded avenues of downtown Cairo, no blaring marquee announces this cinema. Instead look for a small blue doorway, marked by a discrete neon calligraphy sign and sometimes an old Peugeot parked across the street playing films projected onto its windshield. The car once belonged to the late Youssef Chahine, Egypt's most lauded movie director, who in a career that spanned six decades made films with a social conscience that challenged censors and broke with the dominant big-studio system. Behind the door, a project launched by the production company he founded aims to bring films in that tradition to a new audience.